Breakdown
by TimidBookworm
Summary: Everyone has bad days, whether or not company is welcome on those days depends. Just some brotherly fluff. One-shot.


A/N: Geez, I think I exploded with randomness over the last week. o.O

Disclaimer: Stealing is wrong…but borrowing is fun!

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Teasing, that's all it had been. Teasing. His brothers and him having a little fun, it wasn't meant to hurt anyone. And yet, Donny had sprinted off. He knew his brother had been a little moody lately but this, well this was just… completely unexpected. They were just teasing! And yet, here Raph was, chasing his little brother through the sewers. He couldn't get the look on Don's face out of his head. He'd looked so… hurt. That wasn't right.

He comes to one of the smaller junctions and stops at the end of his tunnel, resting a hand against the brick.

"Donny?" he calls almost breathlessly, he'd been sprinting for a while. The only answer is that of dripping pipes and running sewage water, he must be near one of the spots where the tunnels drop off into lower ones.

"Donny?" he calls a little louder and continues forward. He catches movement out of the corner of his eye and whips his head toward it. "There ya are."

The purple clad turtle was huddled in a dry stretch between two drop offs, curled up and looking as though he'd like nothing more than to retreat into his shell.

"Go away Raph." He growls into his legs. Raphael hesitates a moment, but after a beat ignores the comment and makes his way over to his brother.

"Keep goin' like that an' someone's gunna mistake you fer me." Raph replies as he sits himself in front of his sibling.

"I said beat it Raph! I don't want to have a conversation with you at the moment."

"Ya well, tough. 'Cause I ain't budgin'."

"Get lost!" Donatello almost yells tensing further, his forehead still jammed into his arms.

"Geez Don, what's eatin' you? We were just teasin' bro."

"I know that!" The purple masked turtle snaps his head up, the normally warm chocolate brown eyes swimming with unshed tears and blazing as he glares at Raphael. "You think it's funny that no one understands what I say half the time?" Raph contains his flinch; he _may_ have said something about Donny never speaking English.

"That it's easy being intelligent?" Don continues, "What happens when something breaks? It's shoved on me and it'll probably be _back _in my lab within 24 hours because it's been broken again. What happens when someone gets hurt? I'm expected to fix it. 'Cause, you know, apparently being smart means I'm automatically a doctor! It's all dumped on me without a thought. Just let Donny do it he knows how, he won't mind! He has nothing better to do! It's not hard for him!" The purple masked turtle shoves his head back into his arms, curling further into himself and mumbling something further that Raph doesn't catch. If he did much more of that, he'd end up in his shell despite the fact that they were too big to be able to.

Raphael has no idea what to do. This kind of stuff wasn't his department - he went and hit things while Leo or Master Splinter took care of this. Heck, _Mikey_ was better at this then him. So why hadn't he let Leo come? Oh, ya, because he's an idiot who works on instinct and beat Fearless to the punch. A sob racks his brother's frame, flustering the bigger turtle. So, not knowing the right thing to say, Raphael instead saddles up beside his brother and awkwardly grasps the brainiac's shoulder.

"Don…" he says slowly after a few minutes. "We don't mean ta shove everythin' on ya… and we don't think you find everythin' easy." Donatello vigorously shakes his head before burying it further into his arms again. Fearing he'd said the wrong thing Raph immediately shuts his mouth and stares at the ground as if it might have some ideas, unconsciously tightening his grip on his brother and his thumb working on its own, slowly rubbing back and forth.

They sit like that for a very long time, Donatello mutely crying – or at least that's what Raph assumes he doing, since he's shaking – and Raph trying to figure out how things even got around to this. Donny had pretty much locked himself in his lab the last two days, rarely coming out. When he'd finally come out for more than 5 minutes the brothers had converged on the opportunity (or more like Mikey had dragged them all to the entertainment center) to have a little fun, which of course ended badly. They were just teasing! The four of them did it to each other all the time. Looking back, it probably hadn't been the best of timing but it hadn't been anything out of the ordinary. Though, with the genius's words ringing in his ears and now that Raph's thinking about it, Don _did_ have to fix the microwave twice last week…on the same day. There had been the coffee table and DVD player too… and he'd stitched Leo and him up a couple nights ago after a run in with the Foot… Raph shakes his head. Unless Don told him plainly what was going on he'd give himself a headache trying to figure it out.

A shaky sigh brings Raphael's attention back to reality and he looks over to his brother. Don rubs at his face for a few seconds before resting his head against the wall. When he spies his hotheaded sibling' gaze he offers an apologetic smile.

"Sorry about that." Raph retrieves his hand, giving the other turtle a once over.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." The larger turtle scrutinizes his brother another moment and goes to say something but gets cut off when Don shakes his head.

"You guys didn't do anything Raph, it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. I've had a bad couple of days is all. Really."

"If yer sure…" Raph gets to his feet and offers a hand to his brother, who grabs it with another small smile. As the turtle hauls the other up, he notices a spot on Don's lower thigh. _That grease?_ Realization suddenly comes to him.

"Were you fixin' my bike in yer lab?" It had gotten damaged a couple nights ago - actually, the Foot had damaged it the same night that stitches had been needed.

"Uh, yeah. I was going to do some modifications that I've had in mind for a while now. They're a little more sensitive in nature and since it's small enough to fit I figured I'd just do it all at once."

"… and it's been givin' ya trouble?"

"Well…maybe a little but like I said, I've just had a bad couple of days."

"Sure, but it didn' help ya any either." Donatello says nothing, swiftly looking away from his brother in order to jump back over the running sewage water and head home. Raph just watches for a moment. Don didn't _look_ okay, well, he looked better than before but not quite there yet, if that makes sense. The red masked turtle races to catch up and playfully punches his brother's arm when he gets there. Don quizzically looks at him, though he doesn't see it since he'd decided to walk fast enough that he was now several feet in front of his sibling.

"What was that for?"

"Come on Brainiac!" Raph calls back, ignoring the question. "_We_ got a bike to fix."

Don smirks and shakes his head, starting to jog in order to catch up. "Wait up Raph!"

"_Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water." ~Antoine Rivarol_


End file.
